Jim Buss knows who the Lakers bring in as a head coach is a defining hire for his legacy as the owner of the Lakers. In his first moves he has tried to make bold strokes to return the Lakers to championship status — trade for Dwight Howard, hire Mike D’Antoni (who has now resigned) — but nobody thought the chemistry through well and it all blew up.

Now the Lakers are hitting a reset and rebuilding, and Buss knows he has to get this one right. The coach, the draft pick, all of it. So the Lakers are going to go slow and cast a very wide net to find a new coach — they are going to talk to everybody.

Ideally that will include Tom Thibodeau, reports Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com.

The Lakers plan to reach out to the Chicago Bulls for permission to interview Tom Thibodeau, a league source tells http://t.co/8DsJGhr2Pi

Thibs is who Kobe Bryant wants, and it is an open secret around the league that there is friction between the Bulls coach and that team’s GM Gar Forman.

But do you really see Thibodeau jumping from a Bulls’ team he has built in his image and one — with a good power forward who can score and a healthy Derrick Rose — that is a title contender, to take on a rebuilding project in Los Angeles? Thibodeau signed an extension recently, the Bulls may well not even give permission.

Thibodeau is a big name but far from the only one to leak out as to be interviewed. Here are some others via Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times and Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com.

I have written about some of the more name candidates in detail, but that list was maybe half (or less) of who gets interviewed.

This is a wide-open search, although my sources have said to keep an eye on Byron Scott — he is a former Laker, part of the family, has coached the Nets to the NBA Finals twice and is a Buss family favorite. He’s far from a lock, but he’s someone to watch.